Salaries of top-paid TxDOT execs up 42.5 percent in the last year

A report published Sunday by the Austin American-Statesman revealed that the agency's three top paid officials make an average of $250,000.

Posted: July 8, 2012 - 12:16pm

The Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The salaries of top executives at the Texas Department of Transportation have spiked more than 40 percent in the past year amid deep cutbacks elsewhere in state government.

A report published Sunday by the Austin American-Statesman revealed that the agency's three top paid officials make an average of $250,000. That includes executive director Phil Wilson, whose salary is $292,500 and was set to make even more before criticism halted an $88,500 pay hike.

Wilson told the newspaper (http://bit.ly/Ne2On0 ) the salaries are necessary to lure top talent to the often embattled agency. Wilson was hired in October to help overhaul the department after years of legislative and internal scrutiny.

The ballooning paychecks haven't trickled down to the rank-and-file. The average TxDOT salary of $48,000 is 3.7 percent more than last year.

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"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx

Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. Then they ( the conservatives ) say as for the poor, they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.
George Carlin

The reasoning that you have to pay more to get good talent is the same perverted reasoning why professional athletes' salaries have spiraled out of control. Part of the problem is that shareholders in the private sector won't reduce salaries and benefits of executives, and the other part is that governing boards of private companies are made up of some of the same people drawing exorbitant salaries themselves, so they protect the chief executives. Besides, it seems that in the public sector they get incompetent executives no matter how much they pay. Did you know that our Texas legislators play the game also? They base their pension plans not on their own salaries but on the average salaries of state judges, so their actual pension amounts are inflated.